Foundation: Evernote’s Phil Libin on Building a Hundred-Year-Old Startup

6 years

For the latest episode of my Foundation series, I interviewed Evernote CEO Phil Libin live from START SF. Phil discusses his views on the “cloud” moniker, Evernote’s plans to be a hundred-year-old startup, and how to make encryption sexy (yes, really!).

People are trained to talk about business like sports, saying it’s a zero sum game. Being in a startup is less like boxing and more like playing music, less like warfare and more like art. Of course there are other competitors and players, but those interactions are not zero sum. If you suck at it, you’re going to fail. You’re not going to fail because someone is better than you. If you’re great, the other people in it will make you greater. Think of it less like baseball and more like playing in an orchestra.”

Kevin Rose is a general partner at Google Ventures. You can watch Kevin’s prior Foundation episode, an interview with serial entrepreneur Ev Williams, here.